Web site providers are increasingly overwhelmed by an ever-expanding choice of internally- and externally-sourced content for their webpages. Placement and integration of these data can be clumsy and labor-intensive. The burden of discovery, placement, and integration of choices typically falls on the webpage provider, who often has limited expertise, understanding of site-visitor interests, and/or resources for this labor-intensive task. Additionally, current paradigms place these decisions at site-design time, when information about specific webpage visitors is lacking.
Meanwhile, web content and service providers continue to build a wide array of outsourceable content and service. Examples include editorial content, advertising, text, graphics, metrics, recommendations, location services, widgets, mashups, RSS feeds, and/or real-time streams. These content and service providers in turn are often frustrated by their limited ability to make their goods and services known to the website providers, as well as face difficulty in pricing and marketing these goods and services.
Further, website visitors increasingly demand that websites respond to their particular interests, both as individuals and as members of communities.